massraider
Footballguy
No no no you need to curate
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Official Twitter Thread (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Capella
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Capella
Footballguy
lol yea I remember that one. Just block 50M accounts and you’ll be all set!
Mister CIA
Footballguy
I was introduced to a new term listening to Sam Harris' latest podcast interview with author Cal Newport, hyper-curation (I'm pretty sure that the term I heard, but old-age and all that...) Ive not finished the podcast yet, but it's pretty interesting and it's relevant to FBG FFA too, where an argument is made for more interaction on smaller social media platforms (the distributed trust model of curation) because they are the real town halls, while Twitter is best thought of as the Colosseum. He (Cal Newport) states that he is bearish on the future of large social media platforms.
Here's a link to the podcast: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/363-knowledge-work. I think the link will bypass the paywall.
Again, have not finished, but it's shaping up to be a pretty meaty conversation, as it touches on many popular topics in the FFA. Quoting from the summary, "They discuss the state of social media, the "academic-in-exile effect," free speech and moderation, the effect of the pandemic on knowledge work, slow productivity, the example of Jane Austen, managing up in an organization, defragmenting one's work life, doing fewer things, reasonable deadlines, trading money for time, finding meaning in a post-scarcity world, the anti-work movement, the effects of artificial intelligence on knowledge work, and other topics."
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Twitter is opt-in, so you don't need to block anybody as long as you're under the Following tab.
For You tends to be a dumpster fire. If you're having a negative experience under that tab, I 100% believe you.
the moops
Footballguy
I only follow like 200 people. Gets pretty boring in the following tab
Capella
Footballguy
I don’t know which one it is, but it’s mostly in the comments, which yes are opt-in by nature but also you really can’t click on them much anymore. But whatever. It’s not going to improve.
FreeBaGeL
Footballguy
The bot farms must be crazy sophisticated these days because Twitter seems to really be going all out to make it difficult for them to sign-up but somehow they persist.
If you're in the US you have to register with a phone number now.
Outside of the US the captcha process is insane. You have to pass 20 captcha tests, each one that is a relatively slow captcha to solve, and if you miss even one you fail the entire thing.
I don't know if these bots just have farms of people in a warehouse somewhere solving captcha's all day or what, but you can't say Twitter isn't trying.
If you're in the US you have to register with a phone number now.
Outside of the US the captcha process is insane. You have to pass 20 captcha tests, each one that is a relatively slow captcha to solve, and if you miss even one you fail the entire thing.
I don't know if these bots just have farms of people in a warehouse somewhere solving captcha's all day or what, but you can't say Twitter isn't trying.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
That's true. I was seeing these in basically every comment section for months.
BlackCrowes
Footballguy
I’m considering only following bots for a while.
Battersbox
Footballguy
Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I rarely dive into the comments of any tweet. Like, almost never. I'm there to read what the tweeter has to say. Not much interested in any responses. Perhaps that's limiting, but for me Twitter is a portal to other things rather than something meant to be interactive.
Desert_Power
Footballguy
It probably isn't that there are more porn bots as much as there is just so much less real interaction.
Thanks. Are they like the ones we sometimes get with a generic comment?
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Sometimes generic but usually it's inflammatory, extremely politically bias, a link to porn or a link to some kind of scam. The comments used to be full of interesting discussion like you might see here but now it's just a dumpster fire.
Interesting. So it's a different plan than the bots we have that do the lame generic stuff.
Capella
Footballguy
No there’s way more. Musk has stated charging new users a nominal amount to tweet in order to combat all the bots.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yeah it’s all meant to make money or sow seeds of hate.
Do you mean the bots? Who in your opinion wants to sew seeds of hate? What is their goal and purpose?
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
China, Russia, Iran and North Korea all have huge cyber warfare groups that exist to do this in order to influence and destabilize countries they view as hostile to them.
Here are a few rather scholarly reports/investigations on this. Lots and lots to dig into, but really solid data/examples/analysis if you’re truly interested.
Study on social media manipulation by Oxford
Study in social media manipulation from NATO
Hostile social manipulation report from US Department of Defense’s
Capella
Footballguy
Joe I respect you greatly but you’ve never heard of this before??
I have a friend who posted on Facebook a couple weeks ago about how he thought he nearly fell for an Apple ID phishing scam. Within a few hours, he had more than 150 comments, all from spambots that referenced the same "cybersecurity expert" who was very likely a scammer. It's insane scrolling through and seeing all the responses from the bots. Never seen anything like it before (though I try to stay off FB as much as possible).
bigbottom
Footballguy
I guess all his posts on FB are set to “public”?
Guess so. I just clicked "Who can see" his post, and it says, "Anyone on or off Facebook."
Yes, I know about this. I was asking for opinions here from people for discussion.
I haven’t heard nearly as much about the generic type posting bots that we have here. They are interesting to me as they’re different than the other types.
I thought most people used facebook for sharing things with a limited audience that you approved.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I have no idea who is behind the bots. I assume it's like GroveDiesel posted.
urbanhack
Fight The Power!
I've found the For You has algorithm has been picking up my behavior pretty quickly and then showing me the appropriate content. Purdue in the final four, fantasy baseball, and a few other subjects have been pretty quick to update in that feed.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Yes, this is my experience too. The way it goes off the rails is that if you click on one political thread (doesn't matter what the topic is), the algorithm starts feeding you related content like a fire hose. And the content under "For You" is selected because it's getting engagement on the platform, which is often a negative indicator of quality. So For You feels like a funhouse mirror version of Following, where it's the same topics only dialed up to 11 and with more stupidity than usual.
I imagine that in a few days, that tab will be dominated by really dumb NFL draft takes, because that's where my attention is wandering.
massraider
Footballguy
When they get rid of the misinformation bots, they only misinformation bots with be: The in-house news division!
Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok often takes jokes and displays them as real news headlines for paying X users.
Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok often takes jokes and displays them as real news headlines for paying X users.
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
I think it's been a little overzealous. I clicked on one thread about that Kate Middleton photo thing happening a few weeks back, and all of a sudden my timeline was filled with all kinds of crazy conspiracy crap.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Once again, Twitter was about 60 minutes ahead of the legacy media in covering a breaking-news story.
SFBayDuck
Footballguy
It was, but also filled with inaccuracies and untruths, like the speculation on the pictures and videos from the bleachers. “Twitter” doesn’t have to verify anything, traditional media does. That’s the trade-off. That, and you have to weed through so much BS to find anything noteworthy and factual. I spent the first hour or so scrolling and searching before deciding it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
BlackCrowes
Footballguy
So it wasn't a space laser?
Don Quixote
Footballguy
I think it depends where you are looking. The “For You” tab was a mess, is still a mess, and will always be a mess (as well as just doing rando searches and looking at trending topics). But my “following” timeline was pretty on point, as mostly filled with journalists from reputable newspapers and media. I remember sharing some stuff from Twitter in the thread before it got shut down last night that was based on reporting from places like the Washington Post and BBC, and that was all accurate at the end of the day.
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IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Same. My TL performed better than CNN, NBC, etc.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
That tweet is still up, but waited for more facts before declaring it. AP also has this subsequent tweet where they referred to it that way.Twitter was the only ones calling it an assassination attempt. Other outlets including on Twitter still maintaining it was just an incident.
This tweet by the AP is still up.
x.com
x.com
x.com
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To be fair, Twitter isn't a source. Twitter is a platform where sources/people/journalists/sites post the information they post.
Twitter isn't right or wrong. Twitter gives the content creators a place to offer their content.
It's an excellent place to see how different sites cover the same story. Some like CNN are exposed. https://x.com/Codie_Sanchez/status/1812257825571147916 with a headline "Secret Service Rushes Trump Offstage After He Falls At Rally".
Like any platform, it gives the accounts that post there a chance to prove their value.
Twitter isn't right or wrong. Twitter gives the content creators a place to offer their content.
It's an excellent place to see how different sites cover the same story. Some like CNN are exposed. https://x.com/Codie_Sanchez/status/1812257825571147916 with a headline "Secret Service Rushes Trump Offstage After He Falls At Rally".
Like any platform, it gives the accounts that post there a chance to prove their value.
You may be right. I try to give people as much benefit of the doubt as possible until they show we can't discuss. This one is close.
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
Yep, it's all about the TL curation. I don't have anything political or breaking news on my TL, so I had to go looking for info... and, good luck with that. But the stuff I actually follow is super reliable generally.
Insein
Footballguy
Media accounts have the ability to update a previous tweet. They chose to leave this one out there.That tweet is still up, but waited for more facts before declaring it. AP also has this subsequent tweet where they referred to it that way.Twitter was the only ones calling it an assassination attempt. Other outlets including on Twitter still maintaining it was just an incident.
This tweet by the AP is still up.
x.com
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In addition, everyone has the ability to reply to their own posts and goes right underneath the top post.
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the moops
Footballguy
And if they updated the tweet people would be complaining about them trying to hide their initial tweet. Go to AP timeline and you can see chronologically how they updated their take on the incident as more information came outMedia accounts have the ability to update a previous tweet. They chose to leave this one out there.That tweet is still up, but waited for more facts before declaring it. AP also has this subsequent tweet where they referred to it that way.Twitter was the only ones calling it an assassination attempt. Other outlets including on Twitter still maintaining it was just an incident.
This tweet by the AP is still up.
x.com
x.com
In addition, everyone has the ability to reply to their own posts and goes right underneath the top post.
FreeBaGeL
Footballguy
This is a good example of how legacy media can't win.
If they're fast and occasionally get something wrong, everyone will zero in on the thing they got wrong (even if they eventually correct it) and lambast them for trying to be the first one to the story instead of waiting to get the story right.
If they wait to confirm things, those same people will lambast them for being too slow.
It's just a no-win situation. People have decided they want to hate them, and will find fault with either direction and contradict what they themselves complained about prior.
Meanwhile these mysterious perfect Twitter sources can put stuff out there, and change or delete whatever they missed on with no accountability because there's not a bunch of people sitting at their keyboards just waiting for them to slip up so they can publish an article about it and everyone can pile on. If they get something wrong, they can just delete it, and no one will even remember they posted it in the first place.
We're not even privy to who these mysterious perfect and fast Twitter sources are, most likely because some random FBG that barely pays attention to them might accidentally stumble into some of their inaccuracies and see that they're not as perfect as claimed, much less if they had entire companies employing dozens of people whose entire job it is to follow them and record and publish every mistake that they made like the actual news outlets have to deal with. I would gander that if someone were to employ a team of people to sit around all day just monitoring what instantperfecttwitternewsguy69 posted they would find a huge amount of issues. But that kind of accountability doesn't exist for them.
I don't agree it's a "no win" situation.
We have the exact same situation on the much less serious topic of Football.
We publish what we believe to be true. Finding that right balance of what we feel good about being true sometimes does cause us to be a few minutes later than other sources who don't want to go for the same level of certainty we do. That's ok. They're ok.
They get the cheers when they're first. They get the boos when they post something too early that turns out completely wrong or biased. It's a balance and the content creator / media gets to make those decisions.
CNN making the headline "Secret Service Rushes Trump Offstage After He Falls At Rally" was a conscious decision. They could have waited 90 more seconds to see it was obviously shots fired and Trump was hit and bleeding. But they made a decision. And that decision affects how people view them going forward. It's up to them.
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FreeBaGeL
Footballguy
But you're kind of proving my point here. Because doing what you're suggesting they should have done is what the post I was quoting was finding fault over other outlets for doing. One outlet waits until information is clear, and is criticized for being too slow. Another posts what they have and update it as they get more, and is criticized for posting info that was incomplete.
If someone's objective is to criticize legacy media outlets, they just criticize them either way. That's where we are at. Sure they've had plenty of legitimate issues before, as any source has. But once people have decided and been propagandized into hating them, they will just criticize either side of it. And they do. Every time.
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